Commentary
Will 41 more presbyteries roll over?
By James D. Berkley, The Layman, November 14, 2008
Since so-called gay liberation became the cause du jour over thirty years ago in the mainline Presbyterian church, gay activists and progressive abettors have launched yearly assaults on Biblical morality. Three General Assemblies have forced rancorous votes in every presbytery, but ordination standard-abolishing constitutional amendments have suffered larger defeats each time.
Little have such setbacks mattered. Those bent on rewriting the rules have persevered year after year, always trying some new scheme in hope of undoing enduring Christian morality. When dealt horrible defeats on the straight-up question of simply removing the standard of “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness,” the moral revisionists have produced devious flanking maneuvers to attempt to gain by stealth what they could not gain by clear vote:
- They sought to parse the meaning of “chastity” beyond recognition or logic.
- They try to make it look as if moral opposition to homosexual practice were a new phenomenon being pushed by angry reactionaries, when such steadfastness remains the nearly universal moral practice among Christians across all centuries and continents.
- They increasingly try to confuse the deliberations by seeking to replace our clear, fair parliamentary procedure with a baffling and easily manipulable “consensus decision-making process.”
- They pushed test cases in permanent judicial commissions, hoping an activist church court might legislate judicially in opposition to the Word of God and the will of the church.
- They dominated the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church, whose authoritative interpretation made a strategic end run around the sure stopper of a presbytery vote, intending to allow ordaining bodies to pick and choose among constitutional standards as they would condiments at a salad bar.
- And, last June at the General Assembly, they proposed and passed a Trojan Horse constitutional replacement to “fidelity and chastity” that looks innocuous enough at first glance, but is teeming with treachery inside.
All of this has been attempted in an effort to make the unthinkable tenable: To treat tragic and sordid sexual immorality as if it were permissible, if not actually laudable.
A crucial vote in progress
All of this leads to a presbytery-by-presbytery vote on the sly constitutional Amendment 08-B. Each presbytery needs to decide for the current “fidelity and chastity” standard or for a revision notable for its ambiguity and calculated to allow practicing homosexual persons to be ordained. The vote is precisely about whether those who practice pre-marital sex, fornication, adultery, or sodomy have some “right” to be ordained. A yes vote says yes to what has always been deemed sin, counting it as immaterial; a no vote says no to approving what God has called an abomination.
The question ought to be simple, were it not for clever wording intended to distract voters from the obvious intention of the amendment.
Here’s the text of G-6.0106b, the “fidelity/chastity” requirement that has been on the Book of Order since 1998 [text stricken through] and the proposed revision [italics]. Note that the new standard would be a subjective obedience to Christ.
G 6.0106 b. Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W 4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament. Those who are called to ordained service in the church, by their assent to the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003), pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church, striving to follow where he leads through the witness of the Scriptures, and to understand the Scriptures through the instruction of the Confessions. In so doing, they declare their fidelity to the standards of the Church. Each governing body charged with examination for ordination and/or installation (G-14.0240 and G-14.0450) establishes the candidate’s sincere efforts to adhere to these standards.”
The first returns show promise. As of Nov. 4, four presbyteries had voted overwhelmingly to disapprove the amendment. In Palo Duro Presbytery, the first and closest vote so far, 62 percent opposed lowering our standards, a slight drop from 64 percent in 2001. Central Washington Presbytery voted much more emphatically the same day: 89 percent opposed, up from 81 percent previously. A few days later, the Presbytery of Mississippi was even more adamantly supportive of moral standards, with 96 percent voting no, compared to 86 percent in 2001. Stockton Presbytery voted no by 78 percent, greater than the 76 percent last time.
Four data points, however, make no trend. There are 169 presbyteries yet to vote, and nothing is certain. As further votes trickle in, however, two indicators bear close watching: First, in presbyteries voting consistent with their vote in 2001, is the determining margin greater or smaller this year? Is there a trend to be spotted?
Second, are any presbyteries changing the direction of their vote from 2001? Moral revisionists need 41 presbyteries to change their mind toward permitting homosexual sex in order to win this year—given that they hold on to all 46 presbyteries that voted to remove the standards last time. In 2001, the amendment was soundly pummeled, receiving approval in only 27 percent of the presbyteries. Nearly three-quarters of the presbyteries voted to defeat the amendment that year. In three votes on the matter, first 97, and then 114, and finally 127 presbyteries voted for our ordination standards. Will the number be greater or lesser this time around?
Rust never sleeps. Defeating Amendment 08-B will happen only if enough Presbyterians fight the moral rot that eats away at a once-great denomination. “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” James warns (4:4). “Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” Friends of God do not let scandalous secular values dictate the morality of God’s church. Amendment 08-B must be crushed.